Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, August 28, 2010

Don't get Michael Carroll wrong. If he had to choose between farmers getting the rain they need to grow crops and that rain messing up Hale County's ditches and roads, he'll take the crops.

Carroll, the Precinct 1 commissioner, has spent the summer facing a challenge. The steady rains the region has received this year mostly has been good for crops, but at the same time it has wreaked havoc on his maintenance schedule.

"It started raining and snowing a few days before Christmas and it's been a consistent thing since Christmas," Carroll said, adding that the Plainview area has gotten significant rain every two or three weeks throughout the year.

From a maintenance standpoint, Carroll said, that has made it almost impossible to maintain drainage ditches around the county because the bottoms aren't able to dry out enough to handle heavy equipment.

As it turns out, Carroll isn't the only one facing that challenge. Precinct 4 Commissioner Benny Cantwell said his crews are "way behind."

Cantwell said under normal circumstances, his crews run shredders through ditches to keep the weeds and grass mowed. That is cheaper than running road graders to completely drag the ditches.

"We've shredded nearly half of our ditches," he said, adding that usually by this point in the summer crews already are well into the second pass.

This year, though, that is not the case.

Not only have crews not been able to complete their original pass, "Where we started, you can't hardly tell we were there," Cantwell said.

The bigger problem, he continued, is that in some parts of the county the ditches have "silted up," and as a result many cannot function as drainage ditches.

In Precinct 2, Mario Martinez said his biggest challenge has been the roads.

"All we're doing is chasing ruts, it seems like," he said.

In order to work out the ruts, crews drag the roads with graders.

That, however, knocks down the drainage crown, Martinez said.

"Our biggest challenge is to go back and build those roads back to where we need them," he said.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Kenny Kernell said from what he has seen during his short time in office, crews mostly have done a good job keeping up with maintenance work, although some areas in the southwest part of the county need work.

For Carroll, in addition to struggling to keep ditches open, his precinct has several all-surface roads on which asphalt was damaged from last winter's ice and snow. He said he is going to have to start moving money around in the budget to come up with funds needed to finish the maintenance work.

"Summer is almost over and we still have a lot of maintenance to get done," he said.

Still, Carroll continued, when he looks at the bigger picture for the county and its residents, he can't complain about his inconvenience.

"When you get a choice between roads and a chance for three-bale cotton without hardly turning on the irrigation spigot," he said, "I'll take the rain."

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(Contact Richard Porter at 806-296-1361 or porter@plainviewdailyherald.com. Follow him on Facebook.)